When Leaves Dance
by Syntipathy
Summary: The ninja world is filled with hidden longings and concealed cruelties. At its heart stands the Third Hokage, weaver and sealer of fates, and his adopted son Naruto, the inheritor of an unspeakable power. WARNING: MA for sex, violence and mature themes.
1. Will of Fire

**AN:**

**The story begins with the Uchiha clan massacre. A this point Naruto and company are around seven years old (I think).**

**Naruto knows who his original parents are and was raised by Hiruzen Sarutobi (for not entirely compassionate reasons). He will have a bloodline limit consistent with his clan heritage.**

**There are two kinds of writing in this story:**

-This text is for narration.

_-This text is for when someone is speaking, thinking or watching..._

**I don't own Naruto**

* * *

_They tell you that his titan body stank of smoke and blood_

_And in his eyes were the suspended reflections of the dead_

_They do not speak of how he danced as he dealt destruction_

_And that so beautiful was he_

_And so joyful seemed the ghosts within his eyes_

_That shinobi leapt into his jaws with eager hearts_

**Prelude: Will of Fire**

**Sarutobi**

He wanders through abandoned hallways and lingers at the doors of forgotten cells. He smells fading blood and antiseptic and excreta. Sometimes there is the vaguest scent of sexual urgency, which is the worst of smells in a place of torture. He is the only person who can keep these doors closed, who can make such rooms irrelevant.

_When I die they will be opened and once again put to their purpose. The phantoms will come spilling out and that will be the end of my Konoha._

Returning to daylight is like coming out of a tomb. Down there, amid other people's tragedies, it is impossible to breathe.

**Uzumaki**

He is small for his age, but his body is strong and quick. He goes bounding over toppled trees and tumbles heedlessly through briars and laughs as they throw stones at his shadow, or at the place where they think he will be. They are laughing too. He is elegant. He is bright and boorish. He is a spectacle.

One of them waits in a shadow of his own making. Bathed in it. The blonde boy passes, senses the other's rushing darkness and leaps.

_Not fast enough._

The shadow holds him (but its weaver is still young and it lasts only for a moment) as another boy falls upon him, snarling and heaving as he makes contact. Grappling, grunting and giggling in innocent closeness.

_Quick I've got him! Help me hold him!_

Not so. The blond boy shifts and twists. He breaks free as the other boys engage. He is encircled. Pressed and lovingly confined. He cannot help laughing. They wear victorious grins and his own grin speaks playful defiance.

**Uchiha**

In later years they will say that the trauma had transformed him. But he is not his brother. This is not his tragedy, it is his birth.

_Whatever sickness lives in me was present from the first._

He is surrounded by dead, familiar faces. He takes them into himself, catalogues every nuance of their final expression. Together they will find a certain man. They will make him see.

**Sarutobi**

He wanders through the quiet servant quarters and lingers in the empty banquet hall. Imagining songs and laughter. He stands on his balcony and regards the sleeping city.

Distantly he senses the Uchiha dying in methodic sequence. It is a slow measure in his heart like a parade of waves.

He goes inside. The blonde child is asleep in the gymnasium, bruised and cut and seeming content. He picks the boy up and carries him to bed. He lays him down beside his grandson.

_They are growing invisibly. What they are becoming I cannot say._


	2. Springtime of Youth

**I still don't own Naruto._

* * *

_**

**Chapter One: Springtime of Youth!**

**0**

Just as he is called the Shadow of Fire, so too is there a shadow of the village in which Sarutobi reigns. It is half sunk in the earth and strangled by untamed green life, and it shudders with the restless dreams of trees.

Its bones are the salvaged fossils of forgotten kami. Sometimes they uproot themselves, bedecked with green canopies and filled with wailing ghosts, and stride toward the sunlit realms.

At the line of division, where this shadow place meets the true Konoha, there is the vast encircling seal that binds the kami to the darkness. They rail against it.

_We are the seeds of your reality. You require us. Set us free._

They are not liars, but they are mad, as are all ancient things so long hidden away. He denies them, but knows that he must eventually relent. He has not the strength to keep them.

But the boy...

**1**

Sasuke is resting in a tree, watching the clouds. They are the strangest things in the whole world. Somehow more unreachable than the sun.

The children call to him. They are scattered in the clearing in small groups, preparing their bodies, extending and flexing, joining hands and leaning and pulling. A few seem to disregard the purpose of the gathering. They gossip and giggle and trade childish reprimands. For now, at least, the others do not take them to task for their misbehaviour.

They are glad when Sasuke joins them. Girls' faces redden and boys' brighten with camaraderie. They have been worrying about him.

Naruto and another boy whose eyes are wide with life engage in a contest of agility: they each have one leg bound to that of the other, and they contrive by feints and pushes to seize their opponent's left arm with their own right.

The wide eyed boy is quicker and more precise. As the blonde shifts his weight he jerks his knee and unbalances him. He rolls over and around him so they are back to back. He leans backward, then rights himself, then raises a foot to hook the blonde's waist.

Though the blonde responds with every stratagem it is clear he has no genuine counter. At last his arm is seized and their legs are unbound. The two boys beam with mutual pride.

_A most youthful contest, Naruto!_

There are countless other competitions. The clearing is filled with shouted counting and encouragement.

Sasuke joins his friend, whose face glows with exertion.

_Ready, Noodletop? Or do you need to catch your breath?_

Naruto does not. He is rarely victorious but somehow he is never tired, and his grin speaks as much. But he has promised to challenge Sakura, and after that the irascible Kiba. He is earnestly apologetic.

Sasuke smiles forgivingly. He can scarcely conceal his hurt.

**2**

There are long moments of suspenseful quiet. Sakura pauses, breathes and listens. Their game has taken them so far into the forest that she cannot hear the other children. Sparrows tousle in overhead branches. Her heart beats quick.

_I know you're watching. I'm ready for you._

Naruto prowls through the undergrowth. He imagines himself a fox or a mischievous toad. He sees that she is prepared but he is desperate for confrontation. He pounces. He cannot restrain the eager howl that betrays his coming.

She leaps and rebounds from a tree to soar over his head. She is away and running. He is faster but she is quicker on the turn, evading, faking left and-

_He's gone again._

She keeps running but now she does not know which way is safest.

He has taken to the trees and leaps on branches that already bend with the wind. Those are the ones that will make the least sound. When she hears him howl again she marvels that it is coming from above her.

He is careful not to land on her. He snatches her sleeves and pulls her backwards. He catches her and will not let go. She is thrust down and pinned and her struggling only brings him closer. They are covered in each other's scent and sweat.

_Admit it._

_Admit what?_

_You can't do anything to stop me. I could eat you._

His blue eyes are yearning and questing and wild. She believes him when he says so.

**3**

Only the two friends remain, though the clearing still wears the lingering warmth of the day's manic activity. They sit in meditation, listening to the rising night, and seek out each other's Chakra in the dark.

They do not know how it is that they can see this part of each other, and why they cannot see it in others. They would suggest two very different reasons. But then they see two very different things.

_He is a shape and movement somehow darker than all surrounding shadow. He is flickering and twining around and through himself like a self-consuming fire._

_He is a tiny red glow, compressed and sleeping. Somehow he is bigger than the whole world._

They stand and adopt their stances.

_Sasuke-kun?_

_Yes?_

_Sorry I forgot my promise. It won't happen again._

_Shut up or you'll lose focus._

_Right._

When they fight, the blonde has at last discharged all his childish fervour. They are methodical and patient, and swifter than boys should be.

_Already we observe in them the assassins they will become._

He dodges a strike that would collapse his throat. He catches a spinning kick that would shatter his jaw.

_They are the sons of killers._

Resting together they share a gourd of water. One sips slowly, the other gulps in desperate thirst.

_One day we'll be the two best ninja in the whole world!_

Sasuke smiles at this. He can scarcely conceal his joy.


	3. Sprouting

**I still don't own Naruto.**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Sprouting**

**0**

Long before the Sage of Six Paths brought the Chakra knowledge to humankind there was a great lord kami who ruled over the forest with flawless wisdom.

So wise was he that whenever he judged that someone must be killed or banished from the forest, the doomed spirit would not despair: they knew that whatever fate he chose for them would be perfectly just.

One night the lord kami dreamed of the Highest Goddess, and she told him of the coming of humans.

She spoke of how they would be both wise and evil, how the nature of the world would be made uncertain by their deeds.

The lord kami understood that in such a world he could not know what was just and what was cruel. The law of his time was fading.

He summoned all the spirits and told them what he had seen, proclaiming that they must forsake their bodies and join with the trees and simple creatures, accepting a lesser existence.

In all the forest only one spirit refused his decree. Out of simple love, the family of that spirit stood beside her in defiance.

The lord kami understood the will to continue in this grand existence better than anyone, yet he knew that the defiant spirits could not be allowed to challenge humanity.

He created a seal around the house of the dissenting family, binding them to the world of shadows, and as all the other spirits faded that house was soon forgotten.

That is how the time of the forest kami came to an end.

**1/2**

_Papa?_

_Yes?_

_What did that story mean?_

_How does a man become wise, Naruto?_

_By finding his own answers, Papa._

_It's time for bed._

**1**

You can easily predict which children will become shinobi. They are poised and expectant, yet fluid and unobtrusive as though not wholly part of this world.

She is such a child. In the garden, planting and weeding, she makes only the softest and surest of motions. She is patient even in the midday heat, having made a ritual of her work.

There is a man coming down the road toward her and singing. He has an easy smile, and there is music in his eyes.

_Hello young lady._

_Hello sir._

_Are you open?_

_Yes. You can go right in. Papa just got back with some fish._

He compliments her on the diligence of her work and asks her what she plans for her future. She will study at Konoha and learn the ways of ninja. He tells her he is on his way to Konoha, where he was once a genin.

_One day I'll be a jounin._

_I'm sure you will. What's your name?_

_Kiku sir._

He takes out a square sheet of paper and lays it out on the ground. He makes a sequence of seals. The paper folds in impossible ways and becomes a beautiful flower.

_There you go. A kiku for Kiku-chan._

Her eyes widen. He tells her it is his special jutsu. He approaches the restaurant.

_Sir?_

_Yes, Kiku-chan?_

_What's your name?_

_A ninja never reveals his name._

He winks and goes inside.

**2**

Kiku finishes her chores and heads toward the river, staring at the flower to the exclusion of all else. It is a vibrant yellow and larger than her own hands. Its scent is warm and bewilderingly sweet and as she presses her nose into it her thoughts begin to blur.

When she steps into the river she gives a little sigh of pleasure, then closes her eyes and smells the flower and listens to the sound of water. To her it is the best sound there is.

She thinks she hears a whimper. She opens her eyes. A puppy sits on the far bank no more than ten feet away. It cocks its head and gazes imploringly.

_Where did you come from, little dog?_

She hikes up her skirt and wades into the river. The puppy scampers into the undergrowth and she follows after. Even though she is only young she has been training her senses. She is alert to the subtlest motion.

_There!_

The little brown blur vanishes as abruptly as it had appeared but she can hear it scamper further into the wood. She does not know how long they run.

At last the puppy stops in the shadow of a tall, lopsided stone.

_Silly pup, I'm perfectly harmless._

Reaching down to pick it up she discovers it is only a figurine of paper. She steps back. She feels instinctively that she should run, but she cannot, and the stone is no longer a stone but a grinning, grasping thing.

His hands are all over her and inside of her as if to claw out her soul.

**3**

Naruto knows that he is always being watched. He supposes that it is because he is the Hokage's adopted son, and therefore the son of two Hokages. This is not arrogance: he has been raised to think of the village foremost and he is more than ready to die for it.

But that is not why he is watched.

Sometimes when he is at his most excited, when he is fighting with his friends or playing shinobi in the forest, he feels a warmth expanding from the centre of his body. The world is bright and detail is hard to distinguish, but he can taste it, as if the whole of it is pressed against his panting tongue. He thinks he can smell things no animal ever smelled.

It happens now, as he is sprinting through the streets of Konoha. Sakura, Lee and a dozen others run with him, though only Lee can keep pace. It is a race without tricks or jutsu, simple and honest, as he likes it.

_The faster I run, the faster I can run!_

They near the turn that will reveal their destination. His senses are reduced to a collision of olfactory and kinaesthetic beauty, and the strange instruction of a new and rising **voice**. Without willing himself to move he is faster than anything that ever was.

_We may be forced to intervene._

As he rounds the corner he senses something foreign. It is sour and creeping, growing rapidly before him. He clings desperately to his fading euphoria, but before this anomaly he feels that he is shrinking. Its unfamiliar sourness resolves, taking human shape.

The man coming down the street toward him is singing.


	4. Controlled Burning

**I still don't own Naruto.

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**

**Chapter Three: Controlled Burning**

**0**

They are mostly peasants and orphans but he best loves the children of warriors. Little girls who dream of war. It is a slow process, the carving up of a human soul, yet he manages with tiny little paper cuts, from the outside in and the inside out.

**1**

Toru has deep green eyes and dark brown hair, and he is always singing a song he has just made up or whistling a tune from his childhood.

Even though it has been many years and he has grown much, none of his old friends mistake him. He was popular as a youth. They stop him in the street or call to him from their stalls. They all want to know where he has been and what he has seen in the distant Shinobi Countries.

He apologises, because he has places to go and appointments to keep. He will visit later and reminisce, and tell them his stories.

It is raining when he arrives at the house and rings the bell. It has not been repaired or replaced since he last saw it and its sound is thin and vague like striking a glass jar, but inside there is the immediate and enthusiastic thumping of small feet down wooden stairs.

A round faced girl with pink hair opens the door, seeming expectant, and her face falls when she sees who it is.

_Oh. Hi._

_Hello, I'm Toru. Is this the Haruno household?_

_Um, yes. Who d'you want to see?_

_Haruno Haruka._

She leans backward, clutching the door with ink stained fingers.

_Muuuum! There's a man wants to see you!_

She gazes appraisingly. Puffs her cheeks.

_Are you shinobi?_

He laughs, folds his arms, raises his chin.

_That's a curious question._

_You look like a shinobi._

_You've good eyes. What's your name?_

She hesitates. He smiles a broad smile.

_A cautious mind, too. I bet you're studying at the Academy._

There is the sound of footsteps. A woman appears beside the girl, pink-haired and so much like her daughter. For a moment there is no recognition, then her face blushes and brightens.

_By the Sage! Toru? Toru-kun is that you?_

She pulls the door wide and her daughter steps back, bemused. He takes this to be an invitation, enters the genkan and embraces her.

_Where have you- it's been more than- kami! It's wonderful to see you._

He pulls back, stares intently and shares her tearful smile.

_It's a long story. Can I come in?_

_Of course. Sage, it's wonderful- I mean you look so-_

Sakura shuts the door behind them. She looks at his shoes. They are so large beside her own, and strangely immaculate.

**2**

She was called Ono Momoka. She watched birds and knew all of their names. She did not struggle as much as he would have liked, but the look of her at least was right. At last, when there was nothing left and he was heaving and spent and alone, he took his newest figurine and placed it with the others.

**3  
**

_You were always daydreaming._

Toru is drawn from his reverie. Haruka's gaze is calm but intent and she reaches across the table to grasp his hands. She is startlingly warm. Or he is growing colder.

_You were going to tell us about the Shinobi Countries._

Us. The girl sits at the table's farthest remove, cautious and withdrawn. Her name is Sakura.

_Yes, the Shinobi Countries._

_How much have you seen? How far did you go?_

_Questions! So many. I fear I'm overwhelmed._

_Oh, quiet. I'm just excited. You were so adamant when you left. You know, they wanted to declare you a missing nin- to think they would have hunted you, Toru! But Minato... he always knew you were a wanderer._

_Minato. I was in the Land of Wind when I heard. And Nobu..._

Haruka is silent.

_I know how much you loved him, Haru-chan._

_You knew Dad?_

Sakura's expression promises a long and ruthless interrogation.

_Nobu and Toru were best friends, Sakura._

_He taught me my jutsu- here, I'll show you. It was originally his. I tell you, the things he could make._

_I'm glad he shared it with you. Most jutsu end up being used for only one thing, but he... he thought it was art, simply art. Maybe he was more like you than we thought. He should have gone with you, he-_

Toru squeezes her hand.

_He wasn't really like me. He was a warrior like you, like your daughter. I'm just a little wandering boy._

He can see she has nothing else to say. He knows where and what they will always be.

_There is a ghost standing between us._

He glances at Sakura with a rueful smile. She is stoic and uncomprehending. She is beautiful.

**4**

Shopkeeper Masanori is bumbling down the street toward his house, only a little bit drunk. He forgets which foot is which, drifting left and he sidling right. He is heedless of the downpour. Ahead of him is a little blonde girl with an umbrella. She speaks to a young man whose clothes are dark and sodden with the rain. Masanori calls to her.

_Ino! Ino-chan. What are you doing out in weather like this, nh?_

_I'm going to Sakura's, Goto-san. We've got tests tomorrow._

He sneers at the stranger unabashedly. The man does not look right.

_Get on then, girl. You'll freeze your arse off out here._

Ino shrugs, marvelling at the arbitrariness of grownups, and walks on.

When she is out of sight Masanori steps right up to the stranger's face. The bastard smells of flowers. His crinkled eyes and his even smile seem hollow.

_Where you from, chikan?_

_Please, please, my friend, I'm just a traveller passing through._

With the sudden and practiced aggression of a brawler Masanori seizes him by the collar and lifts him off the ground. For all his drunkenness, the shopkeeper is remarkably strong.

_Fucking pervert. ANBU's gonna have you for target-_

There is nothing in his hands but paper ribbons.

**5**

Toru is frustrated, his insides churn like those of a starving man who has passed before an open door and caught the glimpse of a banquet. He does not ask this one's name. He knows by her bruises and her furious tears that she has suffered much and grown dark with it, and that is enough. He holds her and consoles her but it is perfunctory, an impatient prelude to the deed. He thrusts and bucks pathetically, like a dog. He cuts and carves and is not satisfied.

_Haruno. Won't you have me, Haruno?_

**6**

Sasuke talks about the techniques of his erstwhile clan. To the dismay of passers-by he blows little flames from his mouth. He has a long way to go, he knows, but his brother could not perform this jutsu so well at his age. This fact fills him with a sinister pride.

Naruto scarcely notices. Whenever he closes his eyes he can smell that sour man. The wet spring air is full of him. The streets are rank with him.

They meet Shikamaru at the Ramen Bar, and Naruto pouts into his noodles. Chef Teuchi comes behind him and gives him a manly slap on the back.

_What's the matter, little Hokage? Girl troubles?_

Unfazed, the blonde blows bubbles in his broth. Shikamaru looks quizzical.

_Girl troubles?_

_You know, with whatsername. Forehead girl._

_Forehead?_

_The pink one. Aren't they always off scrapping in some bush?_

_Oh. I suppose. She's pretty troublesome._

Naruto ignores their banter. The smell is thicker now. It is a stink, an unbearable foulness. He grits his teeth. His nails score little gouges in the countertop.

**7**

Toru fidgets in the darkness. She is dancing, crooning, unfolding her petals before him. She takes him in her hands, takes all of him. She is his perfect work.

_Haruno. You belong to me._

**8**

Naruto stares at the ceiling. It is filled with wriggling shapes that gnaw and strangle one another. They quarrel for his attention. They know what is inside of him, and they would set it free.

He sits up in his bed. Beside him is Konohamaru, so much smaller than him and glowing like a blue lantern. There are ten thousand other lanterns shining distantly, visible through the walls. They are all ablaze with nuances of tantalising scent, and his heart is quickening at the smell of them.

_Not yet._

There is another lantern shrinking at the limit of his awareness. It is panicked, pleading and horribly familiar. It is calling to him. When he climbs out of the window the man who guards it (now no more than a cerulean shining) cannot hear him, nor could he prevent him if he did. Fuelled with a sudden purpose, Naruto is faster than can be imagined.

The streets are valleys of odour rich or faded; houses are hills vibrating with the breaths of dreamers. He scampers over shingled hilltops and claws his way up the village's outer wall, and is falling into the forest, pounding the soil with calloused feet.

The faraway light is growing closer. Now the hated foulness surrounds him and he sees how it is swallowing the little pleading lantern. They are on a hilltop. He howls and they halt. The man stands and ceases singing.

Naruto scurries like a dog, so small and yet braying furiously, the sight is almost comical. He pounces. The man is only white scraps of fluttering paper that the wind blows in a hundred directions and he is suddenly elsewhere, but the boy cannot mistake the stink of him. Wherever he goes Naruto is there to rend his paper shell.

They are dancing now, around that hill, and neither will surrender the shape that huddles motionless upon it. But Naruto is tiring. His rage is not enough. If the creature is to wake in him there must be something more.

Toru waits. He weaves a second self and when the boy claws it open it recovers and enfolds him. There is no more strength left in that little body, and Naruto is bound.

Toru picks him up, limp and confined in a little rustling cocoon. He carries him up the hill and rests him next to Sakura, who is far too terrified to cover her naked chest. It rises and falls beautifully, flushed and unmatured.

He is going to take as long as he can but he knows there is little time. He has a paper kunai in his hand. Her pajamas fall away like a gift expertly unwrapped.

_She is... I will..._

For the ANBU a killing strike at one hundred yards is no complicated feat. There are four of them, alabaster and animal-faced, and when they flick their wrists their kunai whir silently back to their hands on invisible cords. His throat opens in four places and begins to flood.

_It was going to be beautiful._

**9**

On Sarutobi's desk stand ten little effigies of paper. They are elegantly folded in a disturbing pantomime of humanity and their bodies are painted with their names. He picks one up and finds that it is inordinately heavy.

_This is all of them?_

_We believe so, Hokage. The Haruno girl would have been his eleventh._

He raises the figurine and sniffs it. It smells of blood but also, very faintly, of chrysanthemum.

_I remember Ishii Toru. He was never a very good genin. He was too soft._

He holds the paper child over a candle, then passes the flame to each of the figurines in turn. The fire is pale and pure. Soon they are less than ash.

_There may have been witnesses to Naruto's transformation. We are making enquiries._

He waves the ANBU away with a casual hand, scarcely concerned with the hallucinations of villagers. That is a problem easily and harmlessly solved.

But tonight was much too close... his attention has been elsewhere and he had not realised how the demon's power was growing. He will not make that mistake again.

_Bring my son. Make sure he is properly dressed._

**10**

It is after midnight and they have travelled deep into the forest. The boy is past exhaustion but walks on wordlessly, stumbling and staggering. Sarutobi is always in front of him. He does not help him when he falls.

They arrive at a small clearing and a lightning-struck tree that is frayed at the top like a poorly kept brush. There are hundreds of decayed little offerings arrayed around its base but there is no shrine.

_Naruto._

_...Papa?_

_Right now I am the Hokage._

_Yes... Lord Hokage?_

_What did the story mean?_

The boy struggles to reply.

_It meant that... some laws are fair... but others are necessary._

He looks wearily into his father's eyes for some indication of satisfaction or disapproval, but finds nothing.

_Hold out your hands._

He does so. Sarutobi raises his own left hand. On it a seal is slowly forming, blossoming and spreading like ink through wrinkled paper. Soon his arm is almost black with that ancient script and the same pattern begins on the child's trembling fingers. Naruto's face is filled with confusion and slowly mounting panic.

_Do not move, Naruto, no matter how much this hurts. You may die._

A shadow is rising above the treetops, immense and ragged. It smells of old earth and sap. It makes no sound at all, but seems to grow and shrink, grow and shrink, as though breathing. There is a voice.

_You will free us, seal-bearer. You will do us justice._

It takes a long silent stride forward. The trees part before it and its shape envelops the moon. Sarutobi makes no motion, such that he might not have seen the shadow at all.

_And the great kami. Were his actions against the renegade spirit correct?_

The shadow strides again. The boy is sagging, nearing unconsciousness, but another part of him is waking; a desperate and inhuman force. It is filling him and speaking through him. It answers.

_**The right of kings is absolute.**_

The tremendous shadow halts. It neither grows nor shrinks but begins to shudder.

_JUUUBI..._

Sarutobi flinches at the name, but already the shadow is beginning to recede, and with it the black script that creeps down Naruto's arms. The boy's head is lifted by unseen hands, expressionless, and something terrible writhes and gleams behind his eyes.


End file.
